Wow, 2020, am I right? Wait, it’s 2023 already. Crap. Not leaving the house as much really put a dent in my photography output.
I was going through my hard drive that I keep all my scans on. 2019 was for sure the highwater mark for my photography, both film and digital. I feel like I always had a camera with me, besides my phone of course. I was always taking pictures, anything that caught my eye, paid work, shooting for friends whatever. Then the door shut. My job was converted to work from home, which has been a dream of mine for a long time, but now I wasn’t taking a walk and photo break to get out of the cubicle for a bit. My life shrunk to my neighborhood.
I did find some photo opportunities, during the “two weeks” I offered to take lockdown lawn pictures for my neighbors. That was fun. We also have a Greenway trail near our house that is great for nature walks with the dogs and the kids but those shots became routine. I missed meeting with friends downtown to walk around and shoot.
I also was cut off, voluntarily from my local camera store. Which was a great source of inspiration. They are a pretty close drive from my work, but a far drive from my home. Not an insurmountable drive, but far enough that it’s a large chunk of time to round trip during the work day. And their hours on Saturdays are very narrow.
As I’ve been updating my website and reading back in my old blog posts here has given me a longing to put some film through the F3 again. I want to make an effort. I want to embrace the inconvenience of the film camera. I want to make pictures for myself again.
I know these are all just excuses I use to justify why I don’t pick up a camera anymore. I’ve been leaning into digital to keep my skills up, but my trusty F3 sits on the shelf, without batteries or film in it. The camera calls to me, to pick it up, to work the film advance and listen to the shutter snap. The mechanical nature of it that the digital SLR has some of, but not quite.
Here’s hoping I can do it.
What do you do to get past a creative slump or get back to a hobby again?
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